Nadia ALY’03 took her first assisted breath underwater at age 12 on a family trip to Jamaica. Though her parents are not swimmers, they nurtured their daughter’s fascination with all things aquatic, arranging for her to join snorkelling expeditions with other vacationing families. Since then, Nadia has charted an astonishing course exploring the world’s oceans and establishing a high-profile reputation as a deep-sea entrepreneur from her home base in Los Altos, California.
Combining her natural creativity and love of the outdoors with rigorous drive and innate fearlessness, Nadia has built an impressive multi-platform brand comprising her underwater photography and videography work, her ocean conservation advocacy and her popular Scuba Diver Life diving expeditions in the South Pacific, South Africa, Mexico and the Caribbean. She’s a trailblazer paving the way for women in the professional underwater realm—still largely a boys’ club—and her confidence and enthusiasm shine in every video she posts.
Nadia’s breathtaking images reveal an array of spectacular sea creatures ranging from hammerhead sharks and orcas to hairy frogfish, mantis shrimp and bobtail squid. Her photos have been published in National Geographic, the Sony World Photography Awards and the Sierra Club magazine Sierra, among others, and in 2020, she was named Ocean Photographer of the Year by Oceanographic magazine. Her photograph of a mass of swirling mobula rays—described as “perfectly exposed, compellingly dramatic and deeply intriguing”—wowed judges.
As a Middle School student at Branksome in the late 1990s, Nadia was already experimenting with video editing, website creation and photography. “I was really shy,” she says. “We set up a digital media lab where I started editing fun stuff, like a video with a bunch of girls jumping into the pool in their uniforms.”
Nadia’s videos would occasionally be shown during school assemblies, and her editing services were in demand by students submitting digital content with their university applications. “Working on all those videos at Branksome really brought me into who I am,” she says. “Those final years at high school, you’re trying to figure out who you are, what you want to do and what you want to study.”
Following Branksome, the tea leaves pointed towards a career in technology and digital media. Armed with a degree in fine arts from the University of Victoria and a master’s degree from the Centre for Digital Media in Vancouver, she landed a job at Microsoft. Nadia continued to create videos in her spare time, one of which won a contest she entered on a whim in 2010. First prize was a two-week scuba diving trip to Fiji that would prove to be a major turning point in her life.
“I was working at Google and started to think, what am I doing here? I’m not interested in climbing the corporate ladder. But I have this burning passion to dive the oceans of the world.”
Within a week of returning from Fiji, Nadia launched ScubaDiverLife.com, an online portal for diving enthusiasts. What had started as a hobby became more of an obsession as she poured time and resources into spreading the word about the aquatic lifestyle.
The death of her close friend’s brother in 2012 was another major catalyst that pulled her away from intense pressure to succeed in the tech world. “I call David’s death my awakening—it shook me hard,” she says. “By then, I was working at Google and started to think, what am I doing here? I’m not interested in climbing the corporate ladder. But I have this burning passion to dive the oceans of the world.”
Within a few months, Nadia left the corporate sector to immerse herself in the world of scuba diving and wildlife photography. She invested in underwater photographic equipment, obtained her PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) instructor certification, and joined an expedition to Bonaire, one of the Caribbean’s premier dive sites.
Although her first underwater photography efforts were disappointing, her skills evolved through sheer determination and hundreds of hours of practice. Between 2012 and 2017, Nadia spent more time underwater than on land, averaging more than 300 water days per year in places like the Falkland Islands, Tonga, South Africa, Indonesia and the Philippines in her quest to refine her deepwater photography chops.
Along the way, she discovered she was happiest when in close, eye-to-eye contact with the astonishing creatures she was photographing. Diving up to five times a day, Nadia also experienced her fair share of close calls, like the time she had to fend off a mob of reef sharks in the Bahamas.
“My definition of success is being fulfilled and happy. So my advice to young women is to follow your heart. You can figure it out, and if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen.”
Over the past 15 years, Nadia has built an extraordinary online presence. Today, her massive following includes more than two million Facebook fans, almost 200,000 YouTube subscribers and more than half a million Instagram followers.
Highly sought after in the tech industry for her insights on applying technology to underwater photography and scuba diving, Nadia was featured in 2022 in Apple’s keynote video for the launch of new products. She was one of three prominent trailblazers whose stories served as a source of inspiration for the new Apple Watch Ultra, designed specifically for exploration and adventure.
Nadia acknowledges the challenges of being one of only a handful of women—not to mention a woman of colour—in a male-dominated field. “Being a girl in the ocean space and photography space is really hard. I think women are offered a lot fewer opportunities,” she says. “At the end of the day, it comes down to how you define success. My definition of success is being fulfilled and happy. So my advice to young women is to follow your heart. You can figure it out, and if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen.”
Nadia continues to advocate for conservation while underlining the threats posed by rising ocean temperatures. What started out as a desire to make engaging content has taken on an almost missionary zeal. “I’m using content to educate people about the depletion of our oceans. Right now, stony coral disease is killing all the coral in the Caribbean and Hawaii. You’ve also got noise pollution because of an increase in ocean container ship traffic—the vibrations throw the whales off course. Add to that the overfishing, the melting ice caps, and the plastic, garbage and methane gas. If this keeps up, our oceans will look very different in just 10 years.”
Diving expeditions are another opportunity for Nadia to share her passion for the ocean with an average of 600 annual customers, who stud their reviews for her blue water safaris with superlatives. “Without a doubt, one of the most awe-inspiring and magical experiences of my life!” reads one.
Even after many years as an ocean nomad, none of this feels routine for Nadia. In a thoughtful video, she describes her playful interactions with humpback and sperm whales during dives that last 30 minutes or more. “Sensing their souls, looking them in the eye when you hang out with them … it brings you to another level and melts your heart. It makes me feel so connected to another species, and that helps me understand my place in the universe. It’s divine.”
Truly, Nadia has made a splash.
Photo: (Top) Nadia glides through the deep blue, surrounded by a pod of 12 majestic orcas during her annual orca expedition in Mexico.
